Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Thursday, May 16 Production Canning

 
We started at 5:45pm with two canners:  Janet of Facility Kitchens, and Briana, a first time canner doing strawberry salsa for her wedding.  The Canning Diva, Diane Devereaux, ran the session.  Janet planned to do asparagus and will wait because Heidi’s’ farm market of Lowell said the asparagus were not at their peak and waiting even a week will provide more plentiful and tender asparagus.
  • Janet did a repeat of beans in pints and chocolate syrup in half-pints to improve her processes and recipes. The pork and beans were changed to vegetarian beans in tomato sauce using Northern beans. This was the second try for the beans and Janet’s conclusion is: Nuña or Northern beans are best, use 4 pounds of beans, mix 2.5 times the sauce ingredients called for in the recipe, be sure the beans are fairly soft before filling, fill jars with beans and onions to barely ¾ full to make the finished beans more saucy, and try for consistency in the amount of beans, onions and sauce per jar. Goal:  18 consistent pints in a session.
  • The chocolate syrup was flavored with cherry syrup to make cherry -flavored chocolate syrup. The recipe only produces 3 half-pints. The thickness is controlled by how long it is simmered and stirred.   Conclusion on the chocolate syrup.  Triple the recipe and you will get 9 half-pints per session.  (Maybe try mint, anise, and coffee flavors too.)
See details and the recipe of Brianna’ Strawberry Salsa at www.canningdiva.com . Diane Deveraux developed and has perfected this recipe. The canned result is beautiful.  A superb marmalade is a bonus from the reserve of the canning. This was Briana’s first production canning session and she hopes to have a full pantry by fall.  
June 13 and June 20 Diane’s Signature Strawberry Salsa is planned to be the featured production run both Thursday’s.  
No canning on the 23rd, Diane is off for the weekend. Thanks Diane for running the show, it makes a huge difference to have an experienced canner in the house.

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